African Spotted Creeper - BirdForum Opus

Subspecies erlangeri
Photo by rdavis
Hawassa Lodge, Ethiopia, January 2015

Salpornis salvadori

Identification

15 cm (6 in)
Its plumage is strongly spotted and barred and it has a thin pointed down-curved bill, which it uses to extricate insects from bark; it lacks the stiff tail feathers which the true treecreepers use to support themselves on vertical trees.

Distribution

Sub-Saharan Africa:
Western Africa: Senegambia, , Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola
Eastern Africa: Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi
Southern Africa: occurs only in Zimbabwe

Taxonomy

Subspecies salvadori
Photo by safariranger
Kapishya Hot Springs, Zambia, July 2006

It was formerly included in Spotted Creeper.

Subspecies

There are four subspecies:¹

• S. s. emini

• Gambia to north-eastern DRC and north-western Uganda

• S. s. erlangeri

• Ethiopia

• S. s. salvadori

• Extreme eastern Uganda to western Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi

• S. s. xylodromus

• Zimbabwe and adjacent Mozambique

Habitat

Open deciduous forest, broad-leaved woodlands and mangrove swamps. In central Africa they seem to favour miomba woodland.

Behaviour

Diet

Their diet consists of insects such as moths, caterpillars, beetles, spiders and bugs. They forage in the manner of other treecreeper species by spiralling up the trunk and along branches; they then fly down to the bottom of another tree.

Breeding

Nests in tree crevices.

Vocalisation

The voice of the west African subspecies emini is described as being quite different from other African subspecies.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2015. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2015, with updates to August 2015. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Birdforum thread discussing the potential split of this species
3. Avibase
4. Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved November 2015)

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2025) African Spotted Creeper. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 2 May 2025 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/African_Spotted_Creeper

External Links

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